News

Venture capitalist-scion Tim Draper, whose investment wins include Skype and Overture, says he plans a ballot initiative to split California into six states.

The U.S. economy grew at a healthy 4.1% annual rate in the third quarter, revised figures showed Friday, boosting hopes that the recovery is shifting into higher gear after years of sluggishness.

While there is still reason for caution, since a large chunk of the GDP growth was the result of companies piling up goods for inventory, the larger picture is of an economy finally firing on more cylinders.

California’s jobless rate dropped to 8.5 percent in November, the state Employment Development Department said Friday, continuing a positive trend after increasing temporarily over the summer.

California employers added a net 44,300 jobs in November, posting strong job growth toward the end of the year, according to data from the state’s Employment Development Department.

The surge in hiring was largely in retail trade, part of the typical hiring uptick during the busy holiday shopping season. Construction and manufacturing both posted healthy job gains, both for the month and over the last year.

The U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace in almost two years in the third quarter, the government said on Friday as it revised its estimates of business and consumer spending higher.

The Lone Star State turned up the dial on efforts to poach businesses from the Golden State.

Home resales hit a near one-year low in November and new filings for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, putting a wrinkle in an otherwise brightening economic picture.

A close look at recent migration data shows that a significant number of younger people do indeed prefer urban life and can endure, temporarily at least, the high housing costs that go with it. However, the data also show that as they age, Americans continue, in general, to shift to suburbs, and later smaller communities, looking to buy homes and start families.

Three of California’s largest school districts showed gains on a national assessment of urban districts that also singled out Los Angeles and Fresno Unified for special recognition from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Last month DWR announced an initial water allocation of only five percent of requested deliveries from the state water project.

California could be a model for national economic growth after cutting public programs, raising taxes on the wealthy and continuing to invest in infrastructure, California Gov. Jerry Brown said Monday.

The overall economic outlook for the U.S. has improved sharply in recent weeks amid a string of surprisingly robust economic data: Businesses have stepped up hiring, new factory orders from abroad are at a two-year high and consumers have been flocking to car lots and restaurants.

But, one wonders, if streamlining CEQA’s provisions for projects that meet some standard of political correctness – or political pull – is justified, why shouldn’t it apply to more traditional forms of development, especially those that create badly needed new jobs?

Confining CEQA “reform” to certain kinds of politically favored projects – such as a new basketball palace in Sacramento or a football stadium in Los Angeles – is just another form of crony capitalism.

California’s population grew by roughly 332,000 people in the last fiscal year — its biggest increase in nearly a decade, according to new California Department of Finance estimates.